The Promise
by untitled1494
Summary: Lily starts to lose hope while confined in their Godric's Hollow prison. James salvages the hope he can't live without.


This story was inspired by The Decemberists, who are forever my idols. This song, After the Bombs, is a beautiful song, and I feel like it fits Lily and James really well.

* * *

"After the bombs subside, and this long low campaign calls it good for the night, we meet in the streets; we meet in the bar's cold light, we grip at our hands while we hold just a little tight. After the bombs, after the bombs subside. After the rockets calm, and the glimmer of fire portends an early dawn, we pinch at our skin, while we wonder how we escaped harm, we forget all our trials, all there in our baby's arms. After the rockets, after the rockets calm.

Then we'll go dancing. Wont we go dancing? Yes, we'll go dancing, till it all starts over again." The Decemberists.

* * *

"You know what I miss most?" Lily Potter sat up, she looked as if in a trance. Her eyes were the green of the fresh morning grass in the summers that he no longer saw; they were staring intently out into the crisp October darkness of the window opposite the large couch they were sitting on. Her rhetorical inquiry broke the silence of several long minutes, during which the young couple sat, Lily's head resting in her husband's lap; James' hand running through his wife's auburn-red tresses. They thought simultaneously of the world they used to live in. The world where they could willingly leave their home, and speak with their friends other than Peter Pettigrew, who had, as of late, been losing color. They thought of what they missed most of that world.

"You know what I miss most?" The tone of hopelessness in her low, serious voice frightened James. If she, the woman he loved, lost hope, than what would he be left to do? "I miss when we'd all go over to the Longbottom's, or they's come here, along with Moony, and Sirius and whatever girlfriend he would have. And Peter, too. And music would be playing, and we'd dance." Her delicate voice cracked. "We'd all stand in he livingroom and move around to the music, whether fast and fun, or that slow jazz that Frank used to love so much." She said 'used to', he knew, because Frank Longbottom had not listened to music in months, for paranoia for his wife and son had over taken his life. He had only ears for his own laments of fear. "We'd all dance," she said, tearing streaming down her face. "Even awkward little Wormtail. He was happier then. We all were." Lily leaned her head to her husband's shoulder, and her silent tears fell onto his t-shirt, through it, and onto his skin. His skin that hadn't seen sun in months.

"This war won't last forever, sweet Lily," James told his sobbing wife. The hazel eyes now stared to the window, icing with cold, and he comforted his wife. "Won't it?" she asked from his shoulder. She couldn't lose hope, for if Lily, braver than all James knew, were to lose hope, no hope would be left in the world, and despair would swallow the world whole, feeding on the last small bits of happiness left, as if picking the leftovers out of its teeth. She couldn't lose hope. "No. So soon, Lily, it'll all be over. You know what'll happen then?" Against his chest, her head shook. "We'll leave Godric's Hollow. We'll go wherever we please on going. But we won't live here. We won't be here forever. Every few years or so, we can come back to look at our old home, and we'll know how lucky we are that the times that existed then are over. We'll know how lucky we are we all got out alive. We'll be somewhere new, not just a new home, a new time: a brand new era, effaced of evil completely. We can start over, we can return to our jobs. I'll continue as an Auror, rounding up the last of those fucking Death Eaters that had the dignity enough not to kill themselves, and we'll take that dignity from them. And you'll write all about it in the Daily Prophet, and the world will know that things are better, now. We'll no longer have any troubles, only sheer joy. Harry will grow up in a world where he can't witness or shed tears, only laugh and laugh. You remember his laugh, Lily? How it sounds so harmonious with yours, and the two of you take all the other sound from the room; from the world. He'll grow up and go to Hogwarts. He'll play chaser for the Gryffindor house team, just like his old man. He'll exist solely to make his parents proud. Which, would, of course, entail a prank or two. But the owls detailing that will be sent to me, _you'll_ never hear of it." Then Lily let out a hoarse, breathless laugh. "And he'll make so many wonderful friends, just like us. And we'll get to know them, and their families and we'll all be a family. And then, after a few pubescent years, that poor, poor boy will fall in love. He'll meet a wonderful girl, the best kind of girl--which is, to say, a red head with that flaming personality and strong hand to support him when he needs it. Just like his dear Mum." Lily laughed again. Maybe there _was_ hope.

"Don't make her too much like me, that'll be weird for her!"

"Alright then, she'll be amazing at Quidditch." Lily laughed more. The sound filled the room, as he had described earlier. It picked him up considerably. "In fact, she plays for the Holyhead Harpies! She loves her mother and father in law, almost as much as she loves their son."

"But not as much, because she'll never love anyone as much as she loves him, and his messy black hair and his hazel eyes."

"No, Lily, emerald eyes. She'll not love anything in the world as much as she loves those bright green eyes, always so brave, so passionate."

"Keep going, James," Lily said as she again out her head to his chest.

"And the two of them will get married and have children so well behaved and not at all trouble that we'll have to wonder whether they're actually related to us. But all that's a long time from now. A very long happy future, stretched out over many years. But Lily, my Lily, so soon it will be when we get out of here, and do you know what we'll do first?" Again, Lily shook her head. "We'll dance. We'll get Alice and Frank and Sirius and his new new girl, maybe Remus will even bring someone. And Peter will have his cheeky little smile back. And little Harry and Neville will be there too, laughing as they do. And we'll dance, Lily. We'll dance till our feet fall off, to the moon and back. We'll dance to all sorts of music, that jazz that Frank loves, that rock music that Sirius 'poisons his mind' with, that upbeat new band the Weird Sisters, you like them. Hell, maybe someone will put on some Celestina Warbeck, we have time. We have all the time in the world. And not a trouble will pass our minds, and all will be as perfect as you are, my dear Lily." Tears were dampening his clothes again, and she looked up into his eyes. In his hazel eyes, there was love: mountains and valleys, lakes and forests, an entire world comprised only of the love for his wife and child, and their constructed future. In her green eyes, he saw, behind the beauty of them, behind even the bravery and determination that never left them, there was hope.

"You promise?"

"I promise."


End file.
